


paint a picture of the days gone by

by socknonny



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamscapes, Drug Trip, Hive Mind, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Period-Typical Homophobia, Science Fiction, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/socknonny/pseuds/socknonny
Summary: The doctors find a way to save Billy thanks to the drugs Steve and Robin were spiked with by the Russians. But something goes wrong... Now, Billy can barely remember his own name, and who the fuck is this pretty boy in front of him?Why does he feel so important?
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 19
Kudos: 160
Collections: harringrove for Australia





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Buildyourwalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buildyourwalls/gifts).



> A gift for buildyourwalls for the HFA collection <33 When writing this, I tried to think about everything you loved about Billy, everything that made your heart ache for him, and what it might look like to give him the sort of closure that would resonate with you. I hope I hit the mark! (There's also a sneaky little Aladdin reference in there, because I know you love Disneyland and I couldnt help it hahah) I hope you like it <33

Billy doesn’t know why the hospital has to be so fucking cold. It’s like 80 degrees outside, and they’ve got the air con up so high his nipples are only a shimmy away from cutting holes in his regulation gown. It’s already backless; maybe he should just go for it. Really give the staff something to talk about when they lead him to the toilet like he’s some goddamn invalid.

Across the room, Steve Harrington shivers in his bed, extra blankets piled high around his neck, and it’s Billy’s only indication that the cold isn’t all in his head. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it was; he nearly died, after all. The only reason he lived is thanks to the preppy asshole shivering on the other side of the room.

Who knew weird-ass Russian drugs would prove so useful?

Billy kicks his blankets off, a frigid breeze blowing into the space where his gown has ridden up and given his thighs a free view of the window, and bites down on his chattering teeth. When Steve looks up, reflexive and exasperated, Billy grins.

“Need another blanket, Harrington?” he drawls, forcing himself not to shiver.

“Fuck off.”

Billy laughs, low and deliberately aggressive. “Aww, is Harrington lost without his rich boy palace? Daddy’s credit card doesn’t go so far here.”

“I’m not a goddamn rich boy,” Steve argues, like a rich boy.

Billy snickers. God, he’d like to take Steve Harrington down a peg or two.

Like always, the thought is immediately followed by a  _ different  _ thought. It’s the exact opposite of what he was thinking, the exact opposite of what he  _ should _ be thinking, and like usual, Billy doesn’t know how to handle it. So he doesn’t. He locks the ‘what if’ way, way, way down deep inside him and refuses to think about what he’d actually like to do to Steve. He already knows how that ends. And Billy Hargrove doesn’t  _ do  _ mistakes, so the dumbass thought can stay buried in the place where all dumbass thoughts go to die.

Sure, maybe he’s lying to himself, but who gives a shit? He’s the only one to know.

Billy grits his teeth and bares them in something like a smile. “Yeah? Why are you shivering, then?” He nudges his own blanket with his foot. “Go on, take this one. Maybe four blankets will do the trick.”

“What part of  _ fuck off  _ don’t you understand, Hargrove?”

Billy pretends to mull it over, running his tongue across his teeth. When he speaks, he lowers his voice several notes and grins like an asshole. “Definitely the  _ fuck  _ part.”

Steve visibly swallows. His eyes dart to Billy, and Billy knows he isn’t imagining the heat there, knows because—

The door opens and a harried-looking doctor enters. “Mr Harrington, Mr Hargrove, how are you feeling?”

The grin slowly falls from Billy’s face. He knows what a question like that means. The doctor is too tense, too flighty. Billy has seen enough adults who can’t look him in the eye to know when he’s about to be betrayed.

“What did you do?” he asks without answering her question.

Struggling to a sitting position, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, boiling rage coursing through him. The air con is no longer a problem.

The doctor holds up her clipboard like a shield, flipping the page over. “Nothing at all, Mr Hargrove. We just need to run some additional tests. There was an anomaly in—”

The room spins, and Billy lurches forward. There’s a blur of light and sound, and suddenly the room is full of people. An alarm starts ringing, and it’s so fucking loud, he needs it to stop. It has to stop. He clutches his head and turns to Steve, hoping he isn’t the only one who’s suddenly lost his mind.

Steve stumbles forward, eyes glazed, skin covered in a sheen of sweat. The air con, Billy thinks distantly. No, not the air con—fever. He tries to say Steve’s name, because he knows what this means and he’s  _ not  _ going through those tests again. They might have saved his life, but these doctors are  _ not  _ his friends. They have to fight or something. Billy and this other guy have to work together and…

A name swims in his mind, something starting with S, but it’s too slippery to grasp. He stares at the other boy, and there’s a sense of recognition there. He  _ knows  _ this boy, he knows him so fucking well because—

The room goes white, and Billy passes out.

*

When Billy opens his eyes, he thinks for a minute the chaos has followed him. But then he realises it’s only a memory. He lets his gaze blur, fixed on the bland ceiling above him, and in the darkness of his mind he catches glimpses of white walls as his wheeled bed races through the corridor, snatches of conversation: “impossible fever”, “symbiotic feedback”, numbers… so many numbers that don’t make sense.

But now, silence.

He tilts his head and sees he’s in the same room as the other boy from before, but it isn’t the room they started in. This one is smaller, perhaps to counter the overwhelming clinical feel of all the machines jammed between their two beds. It’s less hospital and more… science lab. But there’s a potted plant on the windowsill and the bed covers are striped instead of white, so he thinks they might be going for cozy.

They missed.

It’s claustrophobic as shit, and that makes something itching and clawing rise within him. Something restless and impossible to beat. 

And  _ that  _ stirs something else. A sense-memory, perhaps. Or maybe just a thought—a nightmare. It’s as if his body is out of his control, rising impossibly tall. Building-tall. Chasing. Hunting. Weirdly, he's looking  _ at  _ it, not out from it, but it's definitely him.

A machine to his left beeps wildly, and he has to get out of here. He tears the cables from his arms, a droplet of blood flying free as he yanks the IV drip violently out of his skin, and then he tumbles to the floor.

The other boy sits up with a start, mumbling a sleepy “What the hell”, but Billy doesn’t stop. He barely knows his own name; his sense of self is so violently distorted inside his brain that all he has are snatches of ideas. A name. Anger. Too much skin and too much touch. A monster.

Everything else is hazy. He doesn’t know where he is, but he knows he has to get out of here. He has to escape before this  _ thing  _ in his chest erupts, because all it wants is to kill. Kill. Kill.

Billy doesn’t want to kill, but there are flashes of ideas about that, too. He hopes they aren’t memories. Please, god, let them be nightmares.

He stumbles to his feet, legs tangling in the striped covers, and reaches the window, tearing the venetian blinds up and out of the way. Everything stops. As if down a long tunnel, Billy hears the other boy talking to him, but he can’t listen because there are bars on the window.

A hand touches his shoulder, cautious, and something inside him breaks. It feels so familiar, but he doesn’t know why. No pieces of memory fall into place, no glimpses of an idea. Nothing. Only this feeling rising inside him as he white-knuckles the window sill and shakes so hard he thinks he might come undone. The feeling grounds him, but it also unmoors him, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Hey,” the boy says softly. “I hear voices outside. I think they’re coming back.”

Billy stares at him, the sound of his own ragged breathing reaching his ears for the first time. Jesus, he’s losing the plot. “What the fuck do you want me to do about it?” he mutters, tearing his hands away from the window and looking for another exit. 

He can hear them getting closer. Can he fight his way out the door? Is it worth trying?

The boy’s hands settle on his shoulders again. “We need a plan.” There’s a jittery quality to his eyes, fingers clenched just a little too tightly against Billy’s skin, like maybe the boy knows they need a plan, but even still he wants to smash through the window just like Billy. Like, maybe, he’s hanging on by a thread.

Nonetheless, something about his voice soothes the rising tide of anxiety that’s coursing through Billy. He glances at the door, where the voices are so close they have barely seconds left, and then he nods, just once, the nod of a team-mate to a playmaker. They break, diving back into their beds and fixing themselves up like they have any chance of getting the IV needle back where it’s meant to be. Still, the patches without needles go back in place, and by the time the door bursts open—only after the distinctive sound of a lock sliding back—the only things out of place are their IVs.

Which Billy doesn’t try to hide. “What the  _ fuck  _ are you injecting us with, Doc?”

Misdirection. Make them think he’s mad about the drugs, and maybe they’ll miss the fact that he’s trying to escape.

His brain fuzzes out, and for a second he thinks he remembers what  _ is  _ in the IV drip. Something about Russians. Drugs. Impossible truth serums that also act like the best steroids modern medicine can make, like something straight out of a science fiction novel.

Healing impossible wounds.

The memory fades away, and Billy returns to the present.

The doctor shoots him a disappointed look, and two nurses immediately surround his bed—another two surrounding the other—and set about putting him back the way he was before he freaked out. The needle goes back into his arm with a sting, the nurses falling back with relief, and he starts to wonder if maybe there really is something in the IV bag he should be worried about.

None of them have any bedside manner, he notices. They don’t tuck him or the other boy in, or fuss with his pillows, or care about anything except the meticulous recordings of their machines. One of the nurses fiddles with the dial on the largest machine, noting the readings on a chart, while the other three straighten them up and check all the wires. Then, they disappear out the door, leaving Billy and the other boy alone with the silent doctor who slowly and methodically reads through the charts the nurses amended. 

Billy’s eyes flick back to the window, with its venetians still drawn open. He notices, slowly, that the plant on the windowsill is fake.

What the hell is this place?

The doctor hooks the second chart back on the end of the other boy’s bed with a sharp  _ snick _ . Billy fights the urge to swallow just as hard as he fights the urge to throw a punch. He doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know  _ who  _ he is, and while the desire to kick his way out of here no matter the cost is hard to beat, the other boy’s words echo round in his head, and Billy is still too shaken to disagree.

“Boys,” the doctor says, tight-lipped. Billy doesn’t think he knows her, but he might. “It’s in everyone’s best interests if you stay put and rest.”

“What’s wrong with us?” Billy interrupts.

The doctor’s face remains impassive. “We are in the process of conducting numerous tests, and at this stage—”

“We have a right to know what you’re doing to us,” the other boy says suddenly, face pinched in a mulish expression. The words belong to a trust-fund baby with daddy on his side, but the tone is… brittle. Like maybe he isn’t quite sure he has the clout to back it up.

The doctor takes a deep breath, an emotion crossing her face for the first time. Billy narrows his eyes; maybe this guy  _ does  _ have the social clout. Worth noting.

“You are both experiencing an unusual form of amnesia. It’s likely temporary, but, as I  _ was saying _ , we are in the process of ruling out dangerous side effects before we proceed with understanding the precise nature of your amnesia.”

“Dangerous side effects,” Billy starts saying, his tone thick with derision.

“Like amnesia,” the other boy beats him to the rest, pointing it out with narrowed eyes, and it’s official, Billy’s in love.

The thought sparks something strange in his gut, despite how casual and uninvested it was. It’s like another sense-memory, something deep within him that he can’t escape. He clenches his jaw and ignores it.

The doctor continues as if they haven’t spoken. “The nurses will return for you in five minutes. They’re setting up the questioning room.” There’s a steel glint in her eyes when she says ‘questioning room’, and Billy wonders if she’s moved their schedule forward just to piss them off.

The doctor adjusts her coat, and it’s then that Billy sees it: a glint of metal hooked on her waist. He stiffens, managing to steel his expression into neutrality only through sheer force of will. His heart hammers in his chest, and when he catches the other boy’s eyes, he knows he saw it too. A gun. What kind of doctor carries a gun?

What kind of hospital locks the doors?

She leaves, but neither Billy nor the other boy say a word. The silent glance they share, though, says everything.

_ We have to get out of here. _


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you remember your name?”

“Do you remember how you got here?”

“Do you remember your parents’ names?”

“Do you know who you are?”

“Do you know where you are?”

The questions go on and on until Billy is sick of the sound of his own voice. The other guy—Steve, he learns—isn’t even in the same room as him for the first part, and when they are finally reunited, all it means is that Billy has to go through exactly the same questions all over again. 

He can’t answer any of them, and each new question they ask fills him with an anger so restless and cavernous he doesn’t even know what to do with it, so he just shuts down. His fingers twitch, and he craves something with a crawling itch beneath his skin that makes him think he might be a smoker. It’s like something he just knows, like it’s written into his body, but they don’t ask him any questions about cigarettes so the knowledge becomes just a fucking bonus question that didn’t make it onto the exam.

But he does learn one thing, he thinks, as he sits through the same forty seven basic questions. The doctors think he’ll know more with Steve beside him. Or that he’ll answer differently. Why else would they repeat themselves? Steve is important, and Billy files that away until he knows what to do with it.

“Do you recognise this person?” 

The nurse holds up a photograph with a familiar red-headed girl on it. Familiar, because Billy was shown it five minutes ago. He still doesn’t know who it is. He taps his fingers on the metal tabletop, shoulders tensed as the four windowless walls seem to close in around him. They’re never getting out of here, not until they give the nurses what they want. And even if he knew what that was, he’s pretty sure he can’t, because his memory is just as foggy as ever.

“No,” he drawls, face carefully steeled into bored aggression.

“Wait,” Steve says, holding up his hand and leaning closer. “I know her face.” He frowns, and Billy’s breath hitches at how pretty he looks. “She’s…” Steve trails off, snapping his fingers distractedly like it’s on the tip of his tongue, whoever this chick is. Suddenly, his eyes widen and he points at Billy. “Your sister!”

“My  _ what _ ?”

The nurse’s face remains impassive, but she jots something down on her notepad. “Anything else?”

“I don’t have a fucking sister,” Billy cuts in. “You can quit this shit right now. The data’s wrong. I don’t have a sister.”

“Nah, man, I’m certain of it,” Steve insists. “She’s your sister. You drive her to school.”

“Thirty minutes ago you didn’t even know my name.” Billy sneers, leaning into Steve’s space just enough to make him flinch. The metal table-top cuts into his side, and the frigid air kisses the skin at the small of his back as his gown opens. Small mercies, the doctors gave them each underwear before interrogating them, so at least he isn’t freeballing it on this disgusting chair. “Forgive me if I don’t want to put my faith in your  _ certainties _ just yet.”

“Well, that’s just rude.” Steve glares at him, jaw clenched in a way that makes Billy want to attack him with nothing but his teeth.

“Is there  _ anything else _ ?” the nurse repeats, interrupting them before the argument can really take off.

Billy glares at her, but all he knows is the thick slide of humiliation in his stomach. This girl is apparently his sister, and he doesn’t even remember her.

Steve shakes his head with a grimace. “I only know she’s his sister.”

The nurse pulls out a new photo, this time of a curly-haired kid that Billy kind of wants to noogie on sight. They both shake their head, but then something jumps into Billy’s mind, a flash of memory, a name…

“Dustin!” He practically yells, desperate to answer before Steve can.

The nurse and Steve both startle, but then Steve’s shocked expression morphs into a frown. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Dustin… That’s all I've got, though. I think he hangs out with Billy’s sister? And… me.”

Billy’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “With my sister? Anything you want to share with the class there, pretty boy?” His voice is a low rumble. “That kid’s gotta be like fourteen.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“And this one?” The nurse slaps the next photo down between them, cutting them off once more.

The memories slowly come back, but it’s slow and painfully full of holes. It’s like the pieces are there, but neither he nor Steve can put them together. They're just random, impersonal facts with no stories to connect them. Billy remembers things, but there's no essence of  _ himself  _ in the memories. Nothing that makes him  _ him _ .

They name several people—Dustin, Lucas, Chief Hopper—and recognize several more, but it’s far from a narrative. He even remembers Steve's name on his own, Steve Harrington, but he doesn't share that. There's no point. When a photo of a bald girl is placed in front of them, Billy gets a strange sensation deep in his gut, like he needs to protect this girl.

Flashes of memory cut across his mind: objects flying across a room without anyone touching them. He clenches his fingers into his own thigh and forces himself to stay silent. The girl’s name is a mystery, but he has the weirdest feeling she can move things with her mind. She’s dangerous, but also vulnerable.

His eyes cut to Steve, and he sees the same tension in Steve’s posture. Clenched fists. Shoulders high around his ears. Steve’s eyes flicker to him, and Billy swears they come to a silent agreement to remember nothing about this girl.

When they shake their heads, the nurse stares at them for so long, cold fingers of dread skitter along Billy’s spine. But then she moves on, and Billy doesn’t have time to think about it. The nurse tells them, once it’s all over, that the initial amnesia has passed, and their memories are returning, but Billy doesn’t think that’s quite right. There’s something strange about the things he remembers, about the gaps in what he knows. He doesn’t know what it is, yet, but a quiet voice in the back of his mind tells him he doesn’t want to share with these people when he finds out.

Eventually, the tests are over, and he and Steve are back in their locked hospital room. It’s eerily silent, and the only light coming through the window from outside is the dull yellow of a security light. The machines between their beds buzz, and for the first time, Billy wonders if the room is bugged.

He glances at Steve, who is already looking back, a furtive expression on his face, and thinks they might both be thinking the same thing.

The odd connection between them sparks something in Billy’s chest, and he imagines what it would be like to take that face between his palms and lay claim to Steve’s neck, biting and sucking and leaving trailing marks all the way from his jawline to his cock.

Billy’s own dick twitches at how real the thought is, how much it feels like a memory.

Steve begins to rummage around on the bedside table, picking up the half-chewed stub of a pencil by the phone and presumably hunting for some paper to match. There’s a faint pink flush behind his ears, and Billy has the crazy idea that maybe Steve can hear his thoughts. But that’s stupid, so Billy joins the search, and after a few minutes he produces a three inch piece of paper by way of tearing his patient chart in two.

Steve stares at it for a long time, deflating visibly. Billy knows the feeling; it’s like this room is designed to look like a comfortable hospital room, with the usual small comforts and practicalities, but in reality it’s as fake as the stupid plant on the window. There isn’t even a pad of paper to take notes, because Billy is willing to bet his entire savings that no one who stays here gets to talk to the outside world. When he picked up the phone earlier, the dial tone didn’t even sound right.

Heaving a sigh, Steve takes the paper and scribbles something small in the corner.

_ How are we escaping? _

Billy stares at it, heart thudding in his chest. There’s a visible tic in Steve’s jaw, and Billy’s is clenched so tight his teeth hurt. They can’t get out the window, they can’t get out the door. Billy’s shoulders are too broad to get through the ventilation shaft, and he’ll never admit it but he’s claustrophobic. It leaves… nothing. They have no options.

Steve gets off the bed and wheels his IV drip over to the window. Billy picks up the paper and follows, and together they stare out into the empty concrete parking lot. It’s by the main entrance, where visitors would park, and the fact there are no cars in sight says a lot, even if it doesn’t explain anything.

There’s a  _ snick  _ behind them, and the door swings open to reveal a male orderly wheeling a tray of food. Ideas flash through Billy’s head. He could beat the guy up; he has no doubt about that. But maybe there’s a smarter way. Maybe he could pickpocket him, or weave some elaborate lie about needing the doctor, and then they can escape while no one is looking, and…

He casts a glance at Steve, at the burning restlessness in his eyes coupled with panic bordering on stupidity, and, yeah, neither of them are gonna do well with the smart option.

Billy rips out his IV cord and hooks it around the orderly’s neck, wrapping it three times and then covering it with his forearm and squeezing. The guy’s eyes bulge and he scrabbles soundlessly at Billy’s arm, wheezing as his oxygen is unexpectedly cut off. There are probably cameras in the room. If Billy was running a secret testing facility with locks on the doors and no notepads, he’d put cameras in the room. He estimates they have about two minutes to get the hell out of here.

Behind him, Steve races to catch the door before it falls shut, hooking his fingers into the gap just before it clicks into place and ruins everything. He catches Billy’s eye, and for a second everything falls away. The room, the doctors, the manic edge of fear Billy has been riding ever since he woke up… it’s all gone, because Steve is looking at him like they’re in this together, and Billy doesn’t need his memories to know that’s not a regular occurence in his life. He feels it in his gut. Feels it in the aching sense of loneliness deep down inside him.

Steve holds up three fingers. Then two. Then one.

Billy shoves the orderly back onto the bed, flips the blankets over his head, and sprints for the door. The alarm hasn’t sounded yet, which is a small relief because he and Steve waste precious seconds working out which direction to run. Both ends of the corridor look the same: beige walls, locked rooms, no windows.

They choose left and bolt. Halfway down the corridor, an alarm sounds, followed by a strobing red light from above the final door. It looks like it conceals a stairway, and Billy wonders if it’s stupid to take the stairs since that’s the obvious way to go, or if it’s smart because it’s the  _ only  _ way to go. In the end, the decision is made for him as Steve grabs his hand and tugs him into the only room without a lock.

The nurse inside the room squeals, stumbling backwards into the kitchenette and knocking over the coffee maker. Black liquid goes flying, slicking the floor, but at a glare from Billy she doesn’t try to stop them. She stumbles around the other side of the four-person table, knocking a chair behind her onto the floor, and escapes out the door.

It takes Billy a while to realise Steve is talking, flinging the curtains back and muttering the words  _ fire escape, fire escape  _ over and over again. But he cottons on and accepts it’s probably their only chance.

Someone up there must be on their side, because Billy yanks back the final curtain and there it is: the only window without bars, and a rusty old fire escape outside.

“Steve,” he mutters, voice rough. “Here.” 

Steve appears at his side, and together they shove and pull at the window, but it won’t budge. Outside the room, they can hear footsteps and the anxious ramblings of the nurse they interrupted. The footsteps begin to run, getting closer, and Billy has a second to think  _ fuck you, I’m not staying here  _ before he punches the window, slivers of glass flying everywhere, and drags Steve through with him into the night air.

They make it down two storeys, the ancient safety rail shaking and clattering beneath their feet, before they feel the extra weight of someone else on the stairs. Billy glances back, and there’s too many of them, and the guns they’re carrying don’t look friendly, and what the  _ fuck  _ is this place, and… 

And he’s all out of ideas. Except one.

“Do you trust me, man?” he asks Steve, grabbing his wrist and tugging him backwards, away from the stairs leading down and towards the railing behind them, where it hugs the corner of the building. In the distance he can see a forest. If they can just make it over the fence… 

Steve blinks at him, eyes wide with shock, but he only darts a quick glance back to the men above them before nodding.

“Then fucking jump!” Billy doesn’t waste time. He lets go of Steve’s wrist only long enough to vault the rail, legs flailing in the air as he falls the remaining storey into the bushes below.

Steve's shadow merges with his in the darkness, both of them flying for just a second, and then they crash into the dirt. It’s enough. It’s just enough. They round the corner, buying thirty seconds out of sight of the guns as the guards run down the remaining stairs, and they reach the security fence, and then they’re up and over it, torn hospital gowns flickering on the barbed wire behind them as they disappear into the forest.

Soon, even the shouting fades behind them.

It’s still a long, long time before they stop running.

Eventually, Steve tugs on Billy’s wrist, forcing them to slow down before he doubles over, clutching his knees and wheezing. “I just need… I just need a minute.”

Billy doesn’t want to admit it, but he does, too. It’s only sheer adrenaline that’s gotten him this far. But now that’s fading, and the gaping cuts on his right hand, still full of glass, are sinking in along with the faint idea that maybe running was really stupid. Where are they going to go? It’s night, and they’ve no food, no water, and no way of knowing where they are.

He tenses, clenching his hands into fists before remembering why that’s a Grade A Bad Idea and wincing at the pain. Suddenly, Steve is at his side, staring in concern at his bleeding hand.

“Jesus, is that from the window?”

Warm fingers trace Billy’s skin, and he shivers. There’s something in the touch, something like a memory, except Billy doesn’t feel it in his mind. He feels it in his blood, in every inch of skin from head to toe. It’s a certainty, an inevitability. He knows this touch, and with the manic certainty that only standing almost-naked beneath a full moon in an empty forest can bring, he’d give anything to get it back.

“I’d tear up my gown for bandages,” Steve murmurs, “but then I’d only get arrested for public indecency when we finally do get rescued.”

Billy snorts, and their eyes meet, and the moment is charged with so many things he doesn’t understand. He clears his throat. “Which way?”

Steve looks up at the stars, and Billy is so captivated by the line of his throat he almost misses what Steve says. Then it sinks in—Steve can work out North by the stars—and he realises he can, too. He doesn’t know how, but it’s something they apparently both have in common, along with the obscure knowledge that the forest is to the south of Hawkins. And Hawkins is where they both apparently live.

Billy shifts his feet, still listening for sounds of a chase, but the woods are deathly quiet. “So we head north?”

Steve nods. “We head north.”

To the sound of cracking twigs and rustling leaves, they head north, leaving the hospital behind them.


	3. Chapter 3

They’re in the woods for a surprisingly shorter amount of time than Billy thought possible. Again, he wonders if there’s someone up there looking out for them, because how the hell do two amnesia patients with no idea where they are not get lost in the forest? He doesn’t really care about the answer, though. He only cares about the feeling of Steve’s arm brushing against his, the whisper-light sensation of cheap fabric flying between them as they run.

The first thing they see when they leave the woods is the soft blue glow of an underground pool. The submerged globes make the light flicker and twist. At first, Billy thinks it’s an hallucination, and once that passes, he thinks he knows this place.

Steve doesn’t seem to, slowly skirting the outside rim of the yard and inspecting each darkened corner. Billy understands the caution. He's on edge too, convinced every shadow could conceal a doctor with a gun.

While Steve checks out the backyard, Billy sidles around the side of the house, trying to figure out why the sight of blue light flickering up the walls of the house is familiar to him. He doesn’t expect to find an answer, just as he doesn’t expect this freaky amnesia to ever make sense, but the second he rounds the front corner it hits him like a truck.

“Steve,” he chokes, forgetting to be quiet.

Steve’s there in an instant, but the panicked question dies on his lips when he sees the driveway. He stills, a frown creasing his brow.

“I live here,” he says.

Billy says nothing. What are the odds that they would escape a hospital, memories severely damaged, and run straight to Steve’s house with nothing to guide them but the night sky? He shifts on his feet, glancing back towards the shadowed forest, but nothing emerges to fight them. 

They walk up to the front door and begin to hunt for a spare key. The fact that Steve can’t remember where it is unsettles Billy in a way he can’t explain. He recognises the front of the house but not the back. He led them straight here, but he doesn’t know where the key is. What the  _ fuck  _ is going on?

In the end, it’s Billy who finds the key, tucked into the seam of the doorframe. They enter the house carefully, quietly, but there’s no sound to greet them. There was no car in the driveway, either. If they’re in luck, the house is empty.

The first thing Billy thinks when he steps into the foyer is  _ holy shit this boy is rich _ . A grand staircase leads upwards, and the walls aren’t decorated with junk. It’s tasteful… posed portraits and modern art. There’s no mess anywhere.

The second thing he thinks is that Steve doesn’t recognise anything inside the house. The guy just stands there, staring around with this pained crease in his forehead, Bambi eyes wide and distressed. Billy wants to reach out and comfort him, but he doesn’t know where that thought comes from. It has to belong to a different person, someone without the constant edge of fire burning beneath his skin and the need to run further than anyone can follow.

He folds his arms and leans against the front door. For some reason, he doesn’t want to take another step inside until Steve stops looking like that.

“What now?” he drawls, eyes flicking between the empty bannister and the end of the corridor.

He half expects Steve’s parents to appear, and the foggy mess of his brain wonders if they’ll recognise their own son.

“Why don’t I know this place?” Steve asks, his voice joltingly loud in the silence of the foyer. “I live here, don’t I? Why don’t I know it?”

Billy shrugs, discomfort turning over in his stomach. “We don’t know much, pretty boy. Don’t let it get to you.” The reassurance is weak. It’s getting to Billy; how can it not be getting to Steve?

Steve crosses the landing, agitation written across the hunch of his shoulders, the way his hands flutter over his hips, propping there and then falling away in a painful attempt at certainty. He studies the photograph on the side table, the frown on his face etching deeper.

“I’m  _ in  _ these photographs,” he insists. “And I don’t remember anything. This doesn’t make sense!”

Billy pushes away from the door and comes to stand beside Steve. The photographs are staged: two parents and their only child wearing uncomfortable sweaters in a generic room that must see thousands of middle-class families every year. The corner of another frame pokes out from behind it, and Billy reaches out to pluck the smaller frame free.

This photo is different. It’s obviously Steve’s senior photo, and it’s still staged, but there’s a hint of something real in the corner of Steve’s mouth. Like he’s playing along with what’s expected of him, but he couldn’t give a shit about any of it. He leans against the sturdy trunk of a tree, one hand hooked into the front pocket of his jeans and the other propped against the bark, fingers dangling casually forward. Everything about it screams:

_ This is a farce. I know it; you know it. Quit pretending. _

It jolts some deeper recognition in Billy’s chest, and he must make some kind of noise because Steve tears his attention away from the family portrait and looks over. When he sees the photo in Billy’s hands, he stills.

“I remember that.” He speaks slowly, like he doesn’t trust the words. “Not taking it, but… looking at it. I remember looking at it.”

So does Billy. He can’t picture where he was or what he was doing, but he knows he’s seen this photo before, perhaps a dozen times or more.

It makes the slow uncurling of  _ what if  _ in his chest all the more painful to bear, harder to squash back. Something has been niggling at him over the last few hours, an idea too ridiculous to entertain but too insistent to ignore. It rises every time Billy feels the warm brush of Steve’s skin against his, every time he looks up to see Steve already looking back. Billy  _ knows  _ this guy, and the aching throb in his abdomen tells him exactly how he  _ wants  _ to know him. 

Were they together?

It’s impossible, because Billy doesn’t need a single one of his memories to know how bad an idea that would be in a small town, but he can’t shake the feeling. And the way Steve looks at him, he wonders if Steve thinks it, too. Were they together, and this amnesia means they just forgot?

The sound of Steve’s voice drags Billy back to the present, and he realises Steve asked him a question.

“Huh?”

“Why do I remember looking at the photo, but not taking it?” Steve says again, voice flooded with irritation. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The idea Billy has been toying with dissolves, and a new one emerges in its place. His eyes widen, and he swallows thickly, wondering if he’s mad for even suggesting it. They aren’t living in a world of science fiction; how could this possibly be true? Still… 

“Tell me a secret.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Steve frowns, pausing for long minutes before he finally shakes his head. “I don’t have one. You remember their questions at the hospital. Anything I remember, you already know.”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“Don’t you think that’s just a bit strange?” Billy asks, his voice a slow, sarcastic drawl to mask the unsettled feeling in his gut. “Two guys like us, you think we don’t have secrets?”

“Yeah, but we lost our memories,” Steve says slowly. “We’ve probably just forgotten them.”

Billy nods, waiting for Steve to clue in. He doesn’t, so Billy leans in close. “We’ve definitely forgotten them. What I want to know is why, with every memory that’s come back to us, do we not remember our secrets?”

Steve’s breath hitches, his eyes finally widening in understanding. “I had to see the house before I recognised it.”

“You don’t remember the photo being taken, but you remember the photo,” Billy says slowly. He scrunches up his face, waving his hand in vague circles as he tries to find the words. “It’s like we can’t remember any thoughts.”

This time, it’s Steve who nods furiously, eyes wide like things are starting to make sense even though they’re anything but. “And we remember it  _ together _ , like…” he snaps his fingers, a frown etching onto his forehead. 

“Like we've got some communal pool of memories, and we can't access anything outside of it,” Billy suggests, and the words  _ symbiotic feedback  _ return to his brain, the phrase captured when the doctors moved him. “I only know what you know. Just the facts.”

Snatches of conversation about old books and hive minds and conspiracies flicker across Billy’s mind, too fast to catch. He thinks about what they learned in the hospital: basic facts like what high school they went to and who their friends are. They barely even recalled their friends’ names, sometimes only managing faces or a general sense of recognition, and yet, sometimes there was a snatch of something personal… like that girl with the powers, and the front of Steve’s house.

But for every fact they remembered, even if one person recalled it first, like the face of Billy’s sister, the other wasn’t far behind. The slow recollection of their memories is happening in tandem. Billy imagines a movie screen, playing out a show for an invisible viewer, except the viewer is somehow both of them. Anything off-screen, anything hidden behind the set… it’s gone. 

Billy wets his lips and simply says, “We only remember what we  _ both  _ know.”

As he says it, the thick weight of disappointment settles in his gut. If he’s right, they were never together. That’s something they’d  _ both  _ remember. On screen. Dead center.

Steve frowns. “This makes no goddamn sense.”

“You’re telling me.”

The conversation falls into uncomfortable silence, and after a while they decide their best choice is to stay here for the night and come up with a better plan tomorrow. They’re both tired, and starving as hell, and if Billy doesn’t get out of this ridiculous hospital gown soon, he’s going to riot.

Silently, moving in eerie synchronicity, they climb the stairs and search through the most likely bedroom for clothing. Billy regards the jeans in the dresser for only a few seconds before deciding they aren’t for him, and ends up with a small stack of sweatpants, white tee, and Hawkins High sweater.

“You take first shower, man,” Steve says, shifting on his feet as he stares fixedly down at the folded clothing in Billy’s hands.

Billy suspects he’s avoiding looking around the bedroom. It’s clearly his; there are Polaroids tacked to the walls, and the trophies lining the shelves are dated too recently to belong to someone’s parents. Even in the dim illumination from the desk lamp, Billy can recognise that much. One of the trophies stands out to him, vaguely familiar. Steve seems drawn to it, too, picking it up and turning it over in his hands with a small frown. As Billy notes the distinctive shadow it casts against the window, he realises why he might know it. 

Billy must never have seen inside Steve’s house. That’s why the only thing they can remember about it is the front, and this single trophy sillhouetted against the glass. It settles something low and heavy in his gut as he acknowledges the idea as yet more proof they were never together. Steve is probably as straight as you can get. How many times did Billy drive past the front of Steve’s house? How many times did he stare through his bedroom window from the street? Jesus, whoever Billy is, he’s fucking pathetic.

He nods to Steve, not knowing what to say, and backs away towards the bathroom. Should he leave Steve alone? The guy probably wants some privacy while he tries to dissect the pieces of his life, but Billy’s skin prickles at the thought of him alone in there, lost memories straining beyond reach.

But amongst the things Billy is learning as time goes on is the fact that he’s a goddamn coward, too chickenshit to do anything about the lingering looks he feels on his skin, too much of a pansy to say what he thinks out loud. So he escapes to the bathroom, seeking comfort beneath the searing hot water, and when he returns to the bedroom and Steve shoves past him without a word, Billy doesn’t say anything either.

Steve finds him leaning against the desk, staring down at the cuts on his hands. He thinks he got all the glass out in the shower, but the cuts still sting.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, throwing his towel over the desk chair. He crosses his arms, shoulders hitched high as he stares at Billy’s hands.

Billy shrugs. “Just the glass from the window. I think it’s all gone.”

Steve frowns, forehead creased into a beautiful furrow that does something weird to Billy’s stomach. Again, he’s hit by the sensation that he  _ knows  _ Steve, really knows him. Outside the window, an owl hoots, and moonlight slants through the crack in the curtains. Billy takes a second to pretend there’s a chance he and Steve were fucking and the memory will come back with all the rest. He takes a second to hope, and then he lets it go.

As if drawn by something invisible, Steve’s eyes meet his, and the air feels suddenly thicker. Before he realises what’s happening, Steve is right there, in front of him. There’s a moment where they both pause, neither of them breathing, before Steve’s hands enclose around Billy’s and he begins to trace the line of his cuts with gentle fingers.

“I’ll get tweezers,” Steve says quietly.

He’s gone and back again in under a minute, but in his absence Billy feels cold. Shivers race across his neck, exposed skin tingling as the hairs stand upwards. The silence between them grows as Steve angles the lamp towards Billy’s cuts, tracing the line of each wound with the tweezers until a soft grating sensation indicates he’s hit glass.

Steve pulls each sliver out in silence. With each one Billy feels closer to saying something, closer to bursting, but when the last splinter of glass is free Steve simply puts the tweezers down and says goodnight.

Billy settles down on the mattress that was kept beneath Steve’s bed, body angled so he’s facing the door, and sleeps. But the second he slips into dreaming, it’s as if he’s more awake than ever.

“What the hell,” he breathes, turning in a slow circle as he regards the empty street and the dodgy phone booth behind him.

He knows this place. He knows this  _ memory _ . And just like that, everything comes rushing back. Images race past him, the scenery changing so quickly he can barely keep up, but somehow he doesn’t feel lost, he just feels certain. Somewhere in the world of the waking, his body is sleeping in Steve Harrington’s house, on his bedroom floor, but the Billy out there barely knows that.

Billy recalls the sharp twist of confusion in his waking self as he tried to put together the pieces of his broken memories. It’s a stark contrast to now, in his dreams, as everything he wishes he could forget comes flooding back. 

He sees the Mind Flayer, he sees the warehouse, he sees Starcourt Mall in all its destruction. Destruction that he caused.

He sees Steve. Feels the soft expanse of his skin beneath Billy’s fingers. Remembers what it’s like to taste those lips and feel the hot rush of breath against his mouth. Billy knows what Steve Harrington sounds like when he comes, knows the face he makes when the world drops away and all that’s left is Billy and the way he can make Steve feel.

The rush of memories stops at the mall, right before it opens, when the construction tape isn’t yet cut.

Harrington leads him through the darkened staff entrance, past the storage rooms, and out to the center of the mall where the fountain bubbles softly. It should be dangerous, being so exposed, but none of the construction workers are inside anymore. They’re all in the storage bays, packing up the last of their tools and getting ready to leave the job behind.

The marble pillar is cold against Billy’s back when Harrington shoves him against it, hands sliding beneath Billy’s open shirt. There’s a grin creeping its way along Billy’s lips, quirking the corner of his mouth, and he drags his tongue along his teeth in an attempt to keep from chuckling. He doesn’t want Harrington to know how giddy he makes him, doesn’t want to play all his cards.

“What would you say if I blew you right here?” Harrington whispers against his skin, fingers tugging on the final few buttons of Billy’s shirt so his torso is completely exposed.

The laughter Billy is trying to hide escapes—a huff of breath against Harrington’s neck.

“I’d say hurry the hell up,” Billy murmurs, his hand sliding up to Harrington’s hair and tugging.

Despite the demand, Harrington only grins. They’ve done this too often before for the words to carry any bite. They know each other too well, and the thought makes Billy dizzy.

The memory twists and turns, the blow job stretching far longer than it ever happened in real life—not that Billy would ever admit his poor stamina where Steve is concerned—while at the same time ending in seconds. It’s something about the shock of how it ended in real life, Billy thinks. It’s warping his memory. Making his body ride the sharp edge of fear until all sense of time becomes distorted.

In his memory, it happens like this: Steve blows him, a girl sees, and Billy ruins everything.

In his dream, none of the rest matters. The memory becomes a horrible cycle of Billy fucking things up again and again and again, because that’s what he does. It’s what he does best. It doesn’t matter that the fear overwhelms him, that he is physically incapable of acting any way other than how he does. It doesn’t matter that it’s all in the past anyway, a record caught on a scratch freeze that he never wants to replay.

The memory still happens. The girl sees them, Billy shoves Steve away, and in his fear and anger he shoves him too hard. Yells at him. Covers all the shame and hatred and sadness by calling Steve a name he’s heard too many times in the lie of safety within his own home.

And Steve is a better man than Billy will ever be, so he ends it.

Billy thinks that might be it, that his dream will end now because this is where he runs. This is where Billy escapes the mall and never returns, mere weeks before the monster catches him and his world turns to shit. But the memory stretches longer than reality, morphing into a true dream, and the girl whose face he never saw becomes someone he knows.

“You’ve got to go back to when it all began, knucklehead,” Robin says, staring at him like he should know this. “Gotta turn your stupid lies into the truth.”

Maybe he  _ should _ know this. But all his memories are back, now, and he still doesn’t know anything.

She’s wearing the stupid Scoops Ahoy uniform, and his dream twists again so that now Steve is, too. The two of them stand side by side, but Steve won’t look at him. He never did, after that day.

“When what began?” Billy rasps, thinking of that night, out on the lonely strip of road, when his life came crashing apart around him. “That wasn’t a beginning. It was an end.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Beginning. End. They’re all the same, aren’t they? Come on, I know you’re smarter than this.” She kicks Steve’s foot with her toe, somehow putting affection into the derisive gesture. “Even dingus here should be able to figure it out.”

“Figure  _ what  _ out?” Billy growls.

“We only remember from the outside!” Robin insists, tapping her own head. “It’s an accumulation of what we’ve each seen, you said it yourself. An accumulation of  _ fact _ . Which is another name for what?” She spreads her hands wide, her face the picture of innocence. “Truth. We only know the  _ truth  _ because we’re all fucking  _ liars.  _ And these drugs don’t like liars. So, where was the first lie? Come on, Hargrove, use your goddamn mind.”

Billy takes a step forward, anger rising in his chest, but the dream fades and he wakes up.

He lies there in the early morning light for long minutes, chest heaving as his ragged breath slowly calms. Most of his dream fades, the memories of who he is and what he’s done slipping between his fingers before he can grasp them. Only one thing remains: the words Robin said to him near the end, and the memory of who Steve is. Who he is to Billy.

All Billy’s tentative hope that he might one day be able to suck Steve’s dick dissolves. They’ve walked this road before, and Billy fucked it up. Sure, Steve can’t remember that, but even in the mixed up swirl of shit in his head, Billy knows what a terrible thing it would be to take advantage of that.

He had his chance. Apparently he lost it.

The thought has only just solidified in his mind when he feels the tentative press of fingers against his stomach. The morning light darkens, a face appearing above him, and then he’s drawn upward into a hug so warm he wants to melt into it and forget the world.

“Ssh,” Steve murmurs sleepily into his hair. “You were whimpering. It’s fine. Just a nightmare.”

Billy draws back just enough to take control of the situation, intending to shove Steve away— _ gently _ . But he freezes, the sight of Steve’s sleep-soft brown eyes rendering him captive. His breath hitches, and then Steve is looking at him properly, as if for the first time. An impossible expression crosses Steve’s face, and just as Billy is thinking  _ no, trust me, you don’t want this _ , everything changes.

Steve kisses his mouth, and Billy lets him.


	4. Chapter 4

If ever Billy was given a moment to make two choices, one right and one wrong, he knows it’s now. He knows he’s meant to push Steve away, to tell him what he remembers and let Steve keep his dignity. But he doesn’t. Billy makes the wrong choice, sliding his hands beneath the grey tee Steve wore to bed and trailing his palms across sleep-soft skin. He makes the wrong choice, deepening the kiss even as Steve goes to pull back, parting his lips in an invitation he knows won’t be refused, biting Steve’s bottom lip just hard enough to sting.

Billy makes the wrong choice again and again, and it feels so right he doesn’t even care.

Steve moans into Billy’s mouth and pushes him down on the lumpy mattress, tugging first at Billy’s shirt and then his own until they’re pressed together from chest to hips, skin against skin. They’re both hard, and Billy’s fairly sure he’s the kind of guy who skips grinding up against a clothed dick for the main event, but  _ fuck _ if it doesn’t feel so damn good. Steve thrusts against him, slow, teasing thrusts that angle just at the side of Billy’s cock, sometimes barely even brushing it. It elicits a noise Billy immediately wants to forget, a whimper of a moan caught in the back of his throat, but Steve just grins and swallows the sound by kissing Billy once again.

He should tell him. He needs to tell him.

In a second. Just one more second.

Steve’s hand slides beneath Billy’s borrowed sweats, and Billy suddenly has no idea why they were bothering with grinding when he could have a hand around his cock. He stutters, mouth falling open against Steve’s jaw, and thrusts up into the warm palm that wraps around him. Nothing feels as good as this. 

Even the blow job in his memory doesn’t feel like this, because there was something tainted about that memory. Something… off. Like there was a history there that they weren’t acknowledging. Billy thinks he sees fists flying and rage building, and it’s like a balloon growing larger and larger but never popping.

He thinks, maybe, that day at the mall was when it burst.

But there’s nothing like that here. There’s only the heady rush of desire and warmth that rises between them, only the soft smile on Steve’s face and the confident twist of his hand. There’s only the cool jut of his hip bone as Billy slides his own hand into Steve’s pants, palming his— _ huge _ —cock and trying to think of the best way he can get on his knees for it.

There’s only the heavy weight of guilt in Billy’s stomach, and just as quickly as it began, everything is ruined.

Billy tries to pull back, face twisted in a grimace, but Steve follows him down, mouthing at his jaw, thrusting against his thigh while he expertly brings Billy closer to the end.

“Wait,” Billy mutters, but Steve doesn’t hear.

He doesn’t hear because his face is suddenly buried beneath the sheets, his hands busy with sliding Billy’s sweatpants halfway down his thighs. Billy squeezes his eyes shut, guilt and shame overwhelming him to the point there’s a disturbing wetness behind his closed eyelids. But it’s nothing compared to the desire that floods him as Steve’s hands deftly free Billy’s cock from his borrowed briefs.

The soft heat of breath reaches his skin, signalling a pause, as if Steve is having second thoughts. Or pausing to admire the view. And it must be the latter, because the gentle heat is immediately replaced with the tight, wet warmth of Steve’s mouth. He sucks slowly, like he’s savoring the taste: a slick, unhurried slide down, followed by the flat swipe of a tongue as he licks up the side.

Steve sucks cock like it’s an artform, and Billy can’t help the breathless whimper that escapes him. He throws the sheets back, the cool rush of air making his skin tingle, and fists his fingers into Steve’s hair. The answering moan tells him Steve likes that— _ loves  _ it—and he tempts fate by thrusting up, just a little.

Steve takes him deeper.

There’s no one home, but Billy doesn’t think he’d care if there was because no power on this earth could prevent him from throwing his head back into the pillow and moaning. One hand is still twisted into Steve’s hair, the other clenching the mattress beneath him. He’s still thrusting upward, just small, abortive motions that somehow encourage Steve to moan around his dick instead of choking on it. It’s fucking incredible. His memories might not be back yet, but he knows for sure he’s never had a blowjob like this.

Unless Steve is always like this. Because Billy’s had him before, hasn’t he?

The dream returns again, like a bucket of ice water, and Billy lets go of Steve’s hair before he can lose himself completely. He wets his lips and searches for the word  _ wait, _ tries to say it again, gathering every ounce of strength he has in him, but he’s interrupted by the sound of furious knocking on the front door.

They break away, sleepy desire dissolving in an instant.

“Who’s that?” Billy asks, tucking himself back inside his sweats and flipping up onto his feet.

Steve gives him A Look, and Billy acknowledges it could be Steve’s best friend and they’d probably have no idea.

The knocking abruptly stops. Billy can’t explain why but it fills him with foreboding. There are several seconds of silence, and then a steady, repetitive scratching sound followed by sturdy thumps. It echoes up the stairs, carried straight from the front door to Steve’s bedroom. Steve sits bolt upright, falling slightly off the mattress and staring in horror towards the door.

“They’re trying to break in,” he hisses. “It’s got to be the doctors. They’ve found us.”

“Fuck!” Billy scrambles to his feet and throws open the window. “There’s a tree outside. Could probably land it if we jump.”

“We’ve landed worse.” Steve shoots him a look, and Billy’s stomach flips at the casual mention of something only the two of them understand.

Why the hell did he ever push Steve away? Too much of his dream has faded for him to explain that, and even if it hadn’t, he can’t possibly believe he had a good reason.

There’s no time to ponder it, because a distinctive slamming sound comes from below, followed by footsteps on the stairs.

“Run!” Steve hisses, and he jumps out the window.

As Billy is sailing through the air, he thinks he hears a feminine voice calling after them, but there’s no time to stop and check because he’s scrabbling at a branch and struggling to land on his feet.

Steve’s hand reaches out to steady him, fingers gripping tightly around Billy’s elbow. His touch is electric, somehow more than even before, when they were in each other’s pants, arching against each other. It’s like Steve is just more than Billy can handle, but he’ll die trying.

Why did he ever give him up?

Memories flash through his mind, thoughts, sensations. Didn’t the chick in his dream say they couldn’t remember thoughts? Something about thoughts being lies, and the drugs don’t like liars.

Fucking hell,  _ she  _ sounds like she’s on drugs. Except she’s in Billy’s head, so it’s all Billy, baby.

He remembers the IV drip. Then Steve grabs his hand and he forgets again.

They run back into the forest, the eerie, shaded canopy somehow already like an old friend. It’s just like last night, something guiding them, except this time there are no stars to blame it on. Only a tugging sensation deep in Billy’s chest.

And it isn’t tugging them forward. It’s tugging them backward.

Billy stumbles to a halt and turns. A few feet more, and the house would be out of view. A few feet more, and maybe they would have escaped, run away from this town together and arrived some place Billy can pretend his lies won’t haunt him. Little shack by the sea, maybe, where he can fuck Steve so hard neither of them care about the past.

But the second Billy turns, he sees the person in the window. It’s the chick from his dreams, and he can remember her name, now.

Robin locks eyes with him and raises her hands in a gesture that screams  _ what the fuck, asshole. _ And then Steve is turning, too, and everything twists around in Billy’s head because if  _ Robin fucking Buckley  _ is involved in this then it isn’t just about him and Steve.

Billy no longer has any idea what this is about at all.

But maybe that explains why he didn't remember being with Steve until the dream. If their communal memories aren't just for two, but for three, then Robin would have to have known about them for him to remember. Maybe it explains the unerring tug of direction they've followed since the hospital, leading them all together.

Time doesn’t seem to be moving quite right, anymore. The trees slide and twist out of his view, and the fierce grip of Steve’s fingers around Billy’s wrist, guiding him back through the forest to the house they’re meant to be running from, is less of an anchor and more of a brand. Those fingers burn. Billy is full of lies, and full of anger, and nothing matters anymore except getting out of here while he still can. Keeping Steve while he still can.

Who’s he kidding? You have to  _ have  _ something before you can keep it. He never had Steve.

“Don’t you idiots remember the dream?” Robin hisses, somehow already in front of them, even though Billy swears they were still in the forest. “He needs to fess up, Steve. Come  _ on _ .”

Billy drops back onto the pool lounger and stares up at the sky, still tinged with dawn. Their voices drift around him, but he can’t focus on them. Everything feels too real and not real enough.

Steve’s head appears in Billy’s vision, brow furrowed with concern, but all he says is, “Russian drugs,” like it’s a fucking answer, and then he’s gone again.

Russian drugs. American drugs. Doesn’t matter, Billy can handle anything.

The thought floats in his brain, soothing despite the seering heat flooding his skin and the ice-cold shivers wracking his body. Then, he passes out.


	5. Chapter 5

When he opens his eyes, the first utterly nonsensical thing that goes through his head is:  _ is this where dumbass thoughts go to die? _

The second is,  _ holy shit, I’m tripping balls _ .

He must be in Steve’s house, because there’s a staircase and the walls are covered in the kind of art that belongs to rich people. But the art is moving, swimming within its frame, and the IV drip in Billy’s arm tells him he can’t trust what he sees.

He can’t trust anyone. What’s in this drip? What’s in this  _ fucking  _ drip?

Steve Harrington appears in front of him, piles of blankets stacked in his arms, and Billy remembers everything. He sneers, lip upturned as he runs his eyes along Steve’s frame. The blankets shake, rippling from the convulsive shudders that wrack Steve’s body and threatening to topple over completely. They're both running a fever; Billy can tell without checking.

“Cold, pretty boy?” Billy asks, then, “Daddy’s credit card doesn’t reach so far, here, does it?”

The words sound familiar, but also meaningless, and Billy frowns down at his own hands, clenching and unclenching them into fists. When he looks up, the blankets are gone and Steve is studying him, hands on his hips.

“We’re dreaming, dipshit,” he says flatly, no longer shaking at all. “We share dreams, now. Or haven’t you worked that out, yet?”

Billy’s heart stutters in his chest, flighty and uncaged. To cover it, he leans against the doorframe—some kind of living room lies beyond, still full of rich person things—and leers. “You know…” He forces his voice to be conversational. It’s a well-practiced art, after too many nights spent covering his true emotions. Lying, even to himself. “That sounds exactly like the kind of douche-bag thing the Steve Harrington in my head would say.” He taps on the side of his head and stares at Steve. “So why should I believe you?”

Steve just rolls his eyes, completely unbothered by Billy’s bullshit. “How the hell do you think Robin knew to find us?”

He has a point. Billy frowns, just a little. “What’s she got to do with anything?”

“It’s the drugs.” As Steve talks, the room slowly shifts, and they’re back in the hospital room Billy remembers waking up in yesterday, after their memories disappeared. “The doctors used the same drugs Robin and I were given to bring you back because of the steroid-like properties or whatever, yeah? Well, they didn’t realise how the truth shit worked.”

“And how  _ does  _ the truth shit work?” Billy leans forward, spreads his legs, and props his elbows on his knees, facing Steve on the other bed. He’s absurdly glad he isn’t wearing a hospital gown. “Is that why we’re going loopy?”

“Robin thinks so.”

“How do you know?”

A new voice answers him. “Because we  _ share the same dreams, dickhead.  _ Jesus, don’t you listen?”

Billy bristles, but when his eyes land on Robin in the corner of the room, arms folded and head tipped back against the wall, the arguments die on the tip of his tongue. She’s dressed differently to how he usually sees her. The casual outfit looks good—very Madonna with its layered tees and big hoop earrings. It’s nice, but it brings a horrifying reality with it. It’s like he’s transported back in time, back to that day at the mall, when Billy ruined everything.

In Billy’s dream last night, Robin didn’t just  _ merge  _ into the girl. Robin  _ was  _ the girl. Billy just didn’t recognise her at the time, and every time he saw her after that, she was in that stupid uniform. He never realised it was her. Jesus, it’s her. She saw him and Steve, she saw him, and even though she didn't recognise him at the time, she does now, and she can tell people if she—

“Relax, dingus.” Despite her words, Robin’s voice is gentle. “I’m a lesbian.”

Oh.

“But you do owe Steve an apology.”

Her words almost don’t sink in; of course he owes Steve an apology. It doesn’t mean Steve is going to get one. Then he remembers what she said about the lies.

The dream changes, and this time, his memory plays out exactly as it did in real life.

“What would you say if I blew you right here?” Steve’s smile is wicked, his hand already palming Billy through his jeans.

“I’d say hurry the hell up.” 

Billy twists his hand in Steve’s hair, tugging in exactly the way he knows gets Steve riled. It ruins Steve’s perfect styling, which Steve hates, but it makes his dick harder than a rock. And he fucking loves that, loves when Billy does it to him, loves what they do to each other.

There’s something hovering on the fringe of Billy’s awareness, like he’s been here before, but he doesn’t care. He can’t think beyond the eager heat of Steve’s mouth, can’t focus on anything but the way Steve Harrington was made to suck cock.  _ Billy’s  _ cock.

Looks like Steve knows it too, because he's down on his knees, one hand shoved in the front of his jeans, begging for Billy to fuck his face and ruin his hair.

Billy’s so fucking close. He lets go of Steve’s hair and lets his fingers trail along Steve’s jawline instead, softer than he means to. For a moment, Steve pauses, slowing his movements just enough to flick his eyes upward, the corners crinkling into the smile his mouth can’t give right now. Something changes between the two of them, something without words.

For the first time, Billy wants to give it words. There’s a quiet part of him that he keeps hidden, keeps safe, and he can feel it now, lingering on the edges. It burns off the edge of aggression that drives him, dissolves the restless energy that keeps him constantly moving, looking for the next threat before it finds him first. Keeps him fighting.

The quiet part surfaces, and suddenly, what Billy wants is to rest. He wants to draw Steve down beside him in soft sheets and dream-filled mornings, wants to lay his head on Steve’s chest and let everything go. God, how good it would feel to let it go.

How good it would feel to  _ stop  _ fighting.

A noise catches his attention, and Billy’s head tips up of its own accord, a ridiculous smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

The smile freezes.

The girl sees him, and Billy can’t breathe, he can’t think, he can’t… he can’t  _ move _ . Someone has seen him. Someone knows.

He has to fight.

The buzz of adrenaline tinges the rest of the movement, slowing it down to snail-like speed while burning every movement into his brain. He recalls the sharp heat of pain in his neck as he looks down at Steve, the hot burn of tears in the corner of his eyes. His wrist twists when he shoves Steve backwards, and the zipper of his jeans doesn’t come up clean. Billy catches himself in the fly, the pain not registering until far later. 

All that registers is the pain and confusion in Steve’s eyes.

The girl is already gone, but it doesn’t matter. She didn’t see Steve; she saw Billy. And Billy has to end it.

“Get the  _ fuck  _ away from me, you fucking faggot,” he hisses, and the words make him want to vomit. “I’m not gay. This doesn’t mean shit.”

He rides the pain of it, using it as an anchor, a reminder of what happens when he lets down his guard, when he stops fighting. The pain of this is better than what comes later. This is what Billy has to choose. He has to choose this. He’ll choose this again and again. 

Billy Hargrove doesn’t do mistakes, and that’s all this was, a mistake.

If he tells himself enough, he might even believe it.

*

“The truth serum won’t let us go because it knows we’re lying,” Billy guesses when the dream fades enough that they can wake up.

At least, he thinks he’s awake. He isn’t one hundred percent certain he was ever asleep; it felt like a waking fever dream. And his forehead still burns, so there’s no way this is over.

The pool water that laps at his feet is soothing, making him feel like maybe things will be all right if he can still feel the coolness of water on his skin. But at the same time, it means he’s close to a body of water large enough to drown him if he falls in, and the forest still looms unnaturally before him. He’s still tripping. This definitely isn’t fucking over.

“Correct.” Robin hovers somewhere in his peripheral vision, lying on her back and staring up at the stars. “I really thought you guys were toast. The second they took Steve into the hospital, I could feel something going wonky.” She holds her hands in the air above her head and shakes dramatically. “And then suddenly  _ bam,  _ I couldn’t remember anything. My parents were super worried, man. But then I went to sleep and it all came back.”

“And you figured out what was happening,” Billy mutters, voice low and tinged with bitterness. “Wouldn’t have killed you to share.”

“Well, I mean, I  _ did _ , didn’t I? But you two idiots ran away from me.”

“You are pretty scary,” Steve pipes in, a smile in his voice.

Billy can still hardly remember anything about his life, only the highlights from his dreams and the facts they all share, but somehow just being together makes it feel a little easier to cope.

He has an odd feeling that wouldn’t be the case if Billy could remember everything about them.

“Why did it take our memories?” Billy asks, because it’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense.

Bizarre drugs, truth serum gone haywire, trying to keep them from lying… that all makes sense, in a pinch, but why the memories?

“They injected you with those drugs because they were like powerful steroids, yeah?” Robin’s voice is soothing, a gentle hum carrying across the night air. Billy almost zones out to it. “Do you know how steroids heal the body? They suppress the immune system, so it stops attacking itself enough for everything to restore.”

Puzzle pieces begin to slowly float into place. Billy closes his eyes and drops back onto the concrete behind him. Feels the cool press of it against his back.

“Think of our memories as being like our immune system. Your memories are attacking you, Billy. They’re making you lie.”

Distantly, he registers that Robin has stopped saying  _ our  _ and started saying  _ your.  _ It’s an attack. He should fight it, but he’s so tired.

“So it’s a way to keep you from lying,” Robin says, very gently, speaking just to Billy. “If you won’t tell the truth, it will take the truth away from you.”

“It can keep it,” Billy mumbles.

It’s better that way, he can just feel it. If the truth is that horrible, Billy doesn’t want any part in it. He’ll just stay like this forever.

“Then we’ll never get our memories back.”

Billy’s eyes snap open. It isn’t just his memory; it’s all of theirs. He stares up at the night sky, at the stars twinkling so far away from them all.

“What do I have to say?” He knows what he has to say. He just doesn’t want to say it.

“You don’t have to say anything, man,” Steve’s voice drifts over from Billy’s left.

Steve’s been so quiet this entire time, Billy almost forgot he was there. They’re all thinking of the same memory, aren’t they? The only one that lasts from their dreams, the only one they keep returning to. Everything else is a blur. Everything else will  _ remain  _ a blur if Billy doesn’t do something. And Steve still wants to look out for Billy, even when he least deserves it.

Robin said Billy had to go back to the beginning, he just didn’t realise it began so long ago.

“It does mean something,” Billy says, staring up at the darkened sky, at the tiny pinpricks of light breaking through. Impossibly, unfathomably, they shine bright enough to reach earth.

“What does?”

It’s like it’s only him and Steve out here, now. He can’t even feel Robin’s presence anymore, but there’s something he has to say to her as well. But first, Steve.

“Everything we did,” Billy grits out through teeth that don’t want to move. It feels like he’s flaying himself open. Still, he chooses to do it. “Everything about you. It does mean something. It means…” He closes his eyes against how raw the words are, but this is a truth serum. He can’t get away with half truths. He wrenches the word out from somewhere deep inside him. “Everything. And I’m sorry. For what I did then, and for everything after it."

He can hear his own ragged breathing crashing through the night, the soft eddies and whorls of darkened air shattering beneath his presence. He always does ruin everything, even when he’s fixing it.

“Me too,” Steve says quietly.

It has to be fucking pathological that Billy’s dick stirs at those words. With everything that’s happening, with all the raw pain billowing inside him, he’s still hard for Steve Harrington.

The name carries different meaning than it did earlier today. Like, maybe he knows who Steve is, now. But when he searches his thoughts for a lost memory or a secret he’s been allowed to have again, he doesn’t find anything. He tips his head sideways to glance at Robin, and finds she’s already looking back, hair splayed out beneath her on the concrete.

“What about me, dingus?” she asks softly.

_ This doesn’t mean shit _ was a lie meant for Steve, to keep him from coming back. Or, more accurately, to burn the bridge between them so drastically Billy never had a chance to crawl back and beg forgiveness.

The other lie was for Robin.

“Hi,” Billy outstretches his hand across the concrete. With a confused furrow in her brow, Robin reaches out her hand to take Billy’s. “I’m Billy.” He shakes her hand. “And I’m gay as shit.”

She stares at him, eyes wide and lips parted in shock, and then she starts laughing. Her smile is bright, her eyes crinkling in a way that can’t be faked for attention or popularity.

“God, you two deserve each other,” she says, rolling onto her back and staring up at the sky.

She’s still laughing, hands clutched over her stomach as she shakes silently, but Billy doesn’t notice anymore because a steady arm slips across his chest and draws him backwards. He sinks into the warmth of Steve’s body and tries to ignore the fact that his memories still haven’t returned. Somehow, he still hasn’t done what the truth serum required of him.

“You know we had the same dream, that first night,” Steve whispers in his ear, sending tingles down Billy’s spine.

The concrete ground digs sharply into Billy’s hip, but he doesn’t care. He’d stay like this forever if he could, because something is looming on the horizon. There’s a heavy weight of darkness, and it’s almost here. If he rolls over, maybe he’ll see it.

“Yeah?” he murmurs, propping his ear on his arm and running his other hand over Steve’s.

“Which means I  _ remembered _ ,” Steve says meaningfully. “This morning. You sounded scared shitless just then, like you thought I’d walk away from you or something, but we’re already past that.”

Billy’s eyes widen as the meaning of Steve’s words sink in.

But before he can roll over and see the truth of it in Steve’s eyes, the looming darkness catches up with him, and everything fades away.


	6. Chapter 6

Billy is hiding. His cupboard makes a great place to hide, although it should probably be strange how the specific echo of each of the four walls is like an old friend. Billy thinks he’d still know that sound in a thousand years. He’d know the sweet silence of it, the safety he feels when each of the walls are close enough to touch and thin enough the outside world can’t catch him by surprise.

_ Go back to the beginning. _ The words make logical sense, but Billy doesn’t know where they come from.

Thundering footsteps charge down a corridor outside his cupboard. He tenses around his knees, hugging himself in closer, and waits.

The door wrenches open, and his father appears, brandishing the broken mug Billy hid beneath the living room couch.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demands, voice just below a yell as he waves the cup beneath Billy’s nose.

Billy doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what that  _ means _ . He broke the cup, and he tried to hide it, that’s all it is, he doesn’t—

“Don’t make the same mistake again, boy,” his father hisses into his ear, smacking the cupboard door so loudly Billy jumps. “And get out of here! What the hell are you doing, hiding away like a girl?”

Billy stumbles out of the cupboard and straightens up. He thinks the way this should go is Billy agreeing to whatever his dad says, promising to be more responsible, promising to change. He thinks that’s the way it  _ does  _ go. But… that’s not what happens.

“It isn’t a mistake,” Billy murmurs, voice so low he can barely hear it.

His dad freezes, so still the only movement is the flaring of his nostrils. “What was that?”

Somehow, Billy grows taller. His dad remains hunched, bent so he can tower over a child, and from Billy’s new height, he’s never seen anything so pathetic.

“It’s not a mistake, Dad,” he says, his voice thick with the steady rasp of adulthood. “And you’re fucking pathetic, old man.”

“What isn’t a mistake?” His dad’s mouth twists into a snarl, but he’s still huddled over, caught in a memory that’s far too old to carry any power.

Still, it has some. The power lingers, calling to Billy with toxic tendrils that demand he yield. Make himself small. Make himself into something different, all for someone else. Because he’s nothing but a mistake.

Billy knows this lie. He knows the taste of it, the smell of it. This is where he  _ becomes  _ the lie. This is where he tells himself Billy Hargrove doesn’t do mistakes, and he turns into someone his dad approves of, and he hides the truth deep down inside where even he can never find it. 

But he isn’t allowed to lie to himself anymore.

More importantly, he doesn’t want to.

The looming darkness catches up with him, and Billy takes a deep breath and blows it all away.

“I’m not a mistake, Dad,” he says, fierce and steady and clear.

Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away.

*

The fever breaks, and Billy opens his eyes to a normal room. There are no distorted colours, no faces threatening pain, no memories determined to break him. Only Steve. Steve, sitting beside the bed, eyes shadowed with sleep and rimmed red. It makes a nice change, because usually Billy is the one who’s been crying. 

He doesn’t say that though. Instead, the first words that come out are, “You knew all along.”

“Not all along,” Steve protests, his voice tired and rasping. “Only after the dream.”

“I know. I mean, you knew then and you still…” Billy trails off.

The smile Steve gives him is brittle around the edges. “I still went down on you? Yeah. Well.”

‘Well’ could mean a lot of things. It could mean,  _ well, I regret it _ . It could mean,  _ well, I’m glad we were interrupted.  _ In Billy’s world, it often means,  _ well, what are you waiting for? Get the fuck out of my sight. _

He doesn’t know what it means here.

Steve’s fingers twitch. It’s a small movement, almost too small to see, and then his hand lifts and reaches for Billy’s, entwining their fingers together.

“Well, I can’t stay away from you, can I?” Steve says with a grin, and there’s no sadness in his smile. No sadness at all—only fierce joy and relief.

Billy doesn’t have to ask to know Robin is gone. Slowly, giving Steve every chance to reject him, he draws Steve’s hand closer to him, closer still, so close Steve has to climb onto the bed with him.

Smile softening into something dreamy, Steve climbs into bed. They lie like that for a while, Steve on top of the covers and Billy beneath them, the heavy weight of their slow breaths the only movement in the room. Now that his disoriented sleep is fading away, Billy recognises the gentle light as the first rays of dawn.

The bed shifts, the mattress dipping beneath Steve’s adjusted weight as he inches up the bed and slides beneath the covers.

“You’ve still got your socks on,” Billy mutters, not protesting when Steve uses his shoulder as a pillow. “You dork.”

“We’re not all as hot as you.” Steve rolls his eyes, and then visibly realises the opening he’s handed Billy on a silver platter.

Billy laughs, head thrown back into the pillow. “Damn straight, Harrington. And don’t you forget it.”

Somehow, it draws Steve in closer to him, and Billy gets a full head of Farrah Fawcett scented hair in his face.

The implications sink in, and he goes giddy with relief. “We’ve got our memories back.”

“Yep.” Steve raises up on one elbow and regards Billy with his lip quirked in a small smile. “Every single one of them, in stereo, baby.”

The hard press of Steve’s dick against Billy’s thigh tells him exactly what memories he’s thinking of. Billy rolls onto his side and grabs Steve’s thigh, dragging him in closer so he can feel that friction where it counts.

Even with all his memories fully returned, all the dozens of times they’ve done this before, Billy can never get enough of this. The pure silence of the house makes Steve’s gasps resonate in the bedroom, in Billy’s brain. Outside the window, birds are calling to each other, but even that is somehow distant. There are no cars moving around yet, no distant power tools or children yelling. There’s only the two of them, in Steve’s bed, surrounded by his godawful fucking wallpaper, together.

Steve’s mouth drops open in a silent plea, and the hand he’s propped on collapses, sending him face down onto the pillow. “Fuck,” he breathes, the word muffled. “Can we—” He shakes his head, even more difficult to hear. “I mean, we don’t have to. You got more fucked up by the drugs than I did, but if you want to, can we—”

“Get on your back, Steve,” Billy demands, rolling his eyes.

Steve scrambles quickly, shedding his shirt and sweatpants in a practiced move and grinning up at Billy with the goofiest smile he’s ever seen. It’s so freaking domestic, Billy has to pause for a moment just to calm the racing of his heart, try to regain his composure.

Then, he realises he doesn’t have to. Slowly, carefully, Billy grins back. He drops his head to Steve’s stomach, trailing a filthy line with his tongue before kissing back up it chastly. He can feel Steve’s stomach tighten beneath him, breath coming in sharp little pants.

Pausing just long enough to tear off his shirt and throw it behind him, Billy braces himself on either side of Steve’s head and laughs. It’s more a huff of breath than a noise, but still too big to contain. He lowers his head, breath hitching at the way Steve strains up impatiently, and kisses him.

It’s slow and soft at first, stretching minute after minute as they remember the way each other tastes, the gentle twists and shoves that are unique just to them. Billy fits against Steve like no one else. He doesn’t  _ want  _ anyone else, and it doesn’t take long before soft and slow has given way to something different.

Steve’s breathing stutters, the gentle catches in his breath becoming rougher, less controlled. Billy pulls away just long enough to share a look, confirmation they’re on the same page, and then he slides lower, lower, to the jut of Steve’s hipbone.

He spends a long time there, teasing it because he can, dipping lower only to flick his tongue across the head of Steve’s aching dick and then return higher.

“Come  _ on _ ,” Steve moans.

Billy laughs, a low rumble. “Patience is a virtue,” he murmurs, and then swallows Steve down in one go.

Steve’s dick hits the back of his throat, sharper and harder than he’d meant it to because Steve is thrusting, one hand twisted in Billy’s curls and the other caressing his jaw, holding him. It chokes him a bit, but he loves it, he fucking loves it, and they find their rhythm in seconds.

The hand palming Billy’s jaw becomes tentative, hesitant, and it takes Billy a second to realise that Steve is asking him to pull off. Billy lifts his eyes to Steve’s and slides his lips back, popping off Steve’s dick as slowly as he can while he waits for Steve to direct him. He doesn’t have long to be confused because Steve is reaching for the lube and rolling over and  _ fuck  _ yes, Billy is into this.

They’ve only done it once before, and it featured in all of Billy’s wank fantasies forever after.

Billy shoves Steve’s thighs together and uncaps the lube. Steve hisses as the cold liquid hits his thigh, but his head buries into the pillow and he moans as Billy starts trailing his fingers across his skin.

“Is that enough?” Billy asks, tossing the lube to the side. He can’t wait any longer. “It’s gotta be enough.”

Steve laughs into the pillow. “It’s for you, not me.”

His laughter dies as Billy shucks his pants and braces himself over Steve’s back. He takes his cock and lines it just below the cleft in Steve’s ass, slowly edging forward. 

Steve fucking moans, and it’s all Billy can take. He falls onto his elbows, mouthing at Steve’s shoulder as he begins to thrust between Steve’s thighs with steady, rhythmic strokes. It isn’t going to take long at all. It’s going to be embarrassingly quick, but Billy doesn’t even care. He guides Steve’s hips upward and shoves a hand beneath him.

The angle is awkward as hell, but he manages to grab ahold of Steve and stroke him, slowing down his own thrusts so their rhythm matches, teasing, edging them both closer.

Steve makes a whimper, just a tiny noise at the back of his throat, and Billy’s gone. He bites down on Steve’s shoulder, pumping him faster until he can feel slick warmth spilling over his fingers.

They collapse onto the bed, hips canted to the side to avoid the wet patch, and just lie there, chests heaving.

“Fuck,” Billy mutters.

“Yeah.”

Their breathing slows, and Steve’s hand somehow finds Billy’s. There’s so many things to focus on in the room, in Billy’s mind, in everything that just happened, but all Billy can think about is the warmth growing between them. Steve’s skin is sleep-soft, his limbs languid from sex.

Billy lays his head on Steve’s chest and sinks into the soft sheets beneath them.

“Go to sleep, Billy,” Steve murmurs against his hair.

His head full of everything Steve means to him, every precious memory they share, Billy does


End file.
